I'm Already Smiling
by Great Bishop Hazel
Summary: Ryan wanders the earth alone in this homage to John Gardner's Grendel.


_**Memoirs Written In Blood**_

_Who am I? Or more accurately, what am I? I am a shadow in a dark building long since burnt nearly to ash. I am a grim reflection in a muddy puddle. I am the feeling of being watched. I am the darkness in the heart of anyone who has ever suffered. I am the grim inverted reflection of Christ himself…I suffer but do not simply turn the other cheek. I return my suffering ten fold. I am the wind which savagely tears at the flesh, I am the dark flames which engulf a home and shatter it. I am a killer. I am a killer pure and simple. No nobility or just cause in my killing, no, not a fucking chance. I do it because that's what I've been born to do. I am a Jackal, a son of Anubis, a bringer of death and ruination. Yet I am human, not a changeling, not a fairy, not a god, not a werewolf, a bogeyman or a wraith, and that is the scariest thing of all…I am human…Just like you._

I feel like people don't even see me sometimes, Like I'm screaming, cursing the heavens right in front of everyone and no one even looks my way, I suppose those who don't want to believe in life after death simply refuse….. Every morning, I can't take my own reflection, I run at my mirror, that haughty young man infected with the poison of greed, avarice, lust and anger…I howl in despair and I attack it. I claw it, I slam into it, I try to pick it up, but I can't. It's like the mirror doesn't acknowledge my presence either but for my reflection. The people outside of my mind live in a different world, this life of beauty and love that I've never known. People acknowledge them, stop and say hello, put a gentle had on each others faces just to feel the warmth of their touch. They slip into a quiet room and fuck, silent moans and groans as bodies drenched with passion writhe together like worms in the mud. That's what they are. Worms. I see it all. They can't see me and nothing bars me from going where I want, so I see it all and it is disgusting.

Watching them together gives me a dirty feeling…The same feeling as I lay beneath that man when I was barely into adult-hood. I didn't cry, though. I struggled and I cursed him, I winced and trembled and shook. No one tried to help me…No one heard my screaming, I remember how he told me 'Stop screaming, you little slut, you're just like your mother!' and he shoved my face deep into the pillow…I hoped I would suffocate…I prayed for it to end, but that bastard God didn't acknowledge my prayers…He just watched and laughed. 'Poor little Ryan Kuhn,' he must have thought, 'I like to watch him suffer though, what a brat, taking up space which a good person could have filled; he never should have been born!' Well, I never asked to be born, but I fought back tears as that bastard Scotland Yard officer fucked me. I felt like my mother…My mother the whore, my mother who was always too busy with her clients to pay attention to me… My mother who avoided arrest from this same man by screwing him…I remember being left all alone in the house for hours, sometimes even days while she was with clients. She never loved me. My father was absent in my life until I was ten years old…I suppose he had an attack of guilt and came looking for me. He simply showed up one day after I'd set fire to that hellhole, my first arson to hide my first murder.

I've seen wholesome mothers, homemakers all of them, slip off in the middle of the day to rendezvous with a secret lover, just like her…. Leaving children sleeping, food cooking and fires roaring…I am tempted to teach them a lesson. My own fucking whore of a mother would often leave me like this. I want these women to know what happens to a child when they leave them alone like this….In a fit of rage at these thoughts, today I cross that threshold and I shove a metal can which reads 'Caution! Highly flammable!' ('Perfect!' I chuckled) into the fire, I turn up the flame on the stove laughing insanely; my depravity is limitless as I turn the forsaken domicile into a bloody inferno of my tortured soul. When I leave the house I am already smiling.

As I skulk down the dismal streets, I look upon the burnt pile of ash which was once the only home I knew during my last miserable year upon this mortal coil. I suffered proverbial slings and arrows as well as torture in the most literal sense. I was twenty-one winters old that night…And so I still am…Robbed of my right to live into old age but also robbed of my handsome features. My hair is singed, my face is scarred and my body is contorted. I hate myself. I fucking hate myself. I drink my troubles away, but alcohol no longer has a hold on my broken form and it does nothing. My money is gone and what would it matter in death anyway? Shit, what does anything matter anymore? I think to just walk past my old home and leave my troubles behind, but I decide 'screw it' and crush the brittle rusted lock in my twisted clawed hand. I follow the path as I did the very first day I arrived only a bit less than a century ago at Borehamwood Asylum. I felt guilt…Believe it or not, I did do one decent thing in my life as a fuck-up. I felt genuinely sorry for killing those whores…Every woman I cut down or decapitated, every last one, may have had a family, certainly had a childhood and that plagued me as I thought of it. Overcome with melancholy, I checked myself into Borehamwood, wracked with this painful guilt.

I lie down on the pile of ash and I am at rest if only for a moment…But then as I feel my soul is about to escape this disgusting world, I see God laughing at me. That motherfucker! I stiffen my resolve as I feel my hair rise like an angry dog. I howl madly at the sky, I grip the sides of my head and dig my claws into my skull. 'SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!' I scream. I am in pain. Still. Even in death I suffer. I hate the world, I hate God, I hate humanity but most of all, I hate myself. I'm a monster, a foul beast from the stinking pits of hell wearing the irremovable guise of a man who was once beautiful, my ebon hair once shown like raven's down and my gray, rotting, scarred and scorched flesh was once creamy, a few freckles sprinkled across my nose, my Irish-English heritage was evident, my eyes were blue as the morning sky, shining innocently once. I howl, I scream, I rage, but I never cry. When my father died, I did not cry. When I was beaten, I did not cry. When I was raped, I did not cry. When a dear friend died, I did not cry. At the moment of my death, I did not cry, nor did I pray or beg for pity…I just lay there and let the fire take me. It engulfed me and all I did was smile. I knew God was laughing at me, expected me to cry, but I would not give him the satisfaction. There was no way in hell I would let that fucker get his wish. I never even cried for the beauty I once was, the beauty which died with me.

These memories grate on my nerves and so I get up and I stalk off into the woods surrounding the asylum. There is a smell of wood burning there in the woods and I soon come upon the source. Happy smiling little girls roasting disgusting gobs of sugar on sticks. They wear uniforms like some sort of sickening sweet corps of giggly pseudo soldiers. I watch them a while and a cruel thought enters my head. I smirk and dart up a tree. I howl and shake the branches and snarl at the animals near the tree, they see me and I know it, I mean to agitate them. The animals go berserk and run towards the campsite and the little girls run screaming. I nearly fall out of the tree laughing.

The tree branch is so comfortable and big enough for me to rest there, so I lay on it and more so even than at the asylum ruins, I feel at peace. The soft breeze flows over me and my wounds are no longer aching. Leaves fall on my face. For once in my life, I am free; it has been a year since I escaped from that crystalline prison called Occularis and a few years shy of a century since I escaped not only Borehamwood Asylum, but my pained existence within its walls. I am truly free.

I remember the Occularis so clearly….The first night I arrived to the first night I spent in Horace's arms…Blood spattered clothing tossed aside, feeling a warmth in my rotted heart that I never thought possible as one of his massive hands rested on my scrawny belly and the other on my bony shoulder. His cold dead lips on the nape of my neck. I was his first. A life alone in agony and loneliness almost identical to mine made us identify with one another, he was the only one I could see myself kissing, the only one I could see myself holding…The greatest, dearest and only love I had ever known.

I don't know how long I lay in that tree. I managed to fall asleep though, it couldn't have been more than an hour, for the sun still has not set. I sit up, shaking my head, tossing my long black hair back over my shoulder. The day is still young, by the position of the sun; I would say it's about noon. The sun won't be setting for several hours. Five at least. I vaguely begin to wonder what I will do with my day. It probably won't be as eventful as the first day after I was freed from that awful crystalline cell.

I don't recall how long it took, but I eventually stumbled out of the forest and past an old historical site. I decide to stop and read the sign which stood there. It tells me that gallows once inhabited this spot…I am reminded of why I am who I am today. It began with his death (mind you that death did not happen here, rather back in London). Gareth got arrested trying to help me, I remember so clearly, there was screaming and shouting and the sounds of fighting. Gareth had told me to run, and run I did, right into a church. I had never believed in God or prayed to him, but I threw myself upon the steps to the altar and pleaded for Gareth's life. "God, please don't let him be hurt! Don't let them kill Gareth! Please!" I screamed and begged, but I never cried. I was nineteen or twenty at the time, maybe eighteen at the youngest. I didn't know what I was saying, I had no idea what to say to convince God to spare Gareth's life. In the end, I staggered out of the church only to see Gareth hanging by his neck and a mob formed around cheering. I snarled to myself and swore vengeance, but I never cried. Not once….I only thought 'So be it, if this is how the world views the grotesque, as monsters, than I'll show them a handsome man can be grotesque too…I will show them the ugliness that festers and preys upon one's heart and soul…The only fragment of memory I have of Gareth is that he looked somewhat like Horace, he acted like him too, almost the same person. I shake a little with sadness and sniffle, but no tear falls from my dead eyes. I can think of nothing but Gareth's last words to me 'Ryan, please run….I love you.' I tremble and shake my head like an uncomfortable dog, finally it's gone.

This thought out of my head, I continue along with only my shadow for company and I hate him, for he is the same insufferable bastard that I am, was, and always will be. I mutter silent threats to him and he does not respond. Just puts one foot in front of the other, a silent silhouette. I remind myself he isn't sentient and so I cannot destroy him. With an exasperated sigh, I shake my head and continue on my way. I reach the edge of the vast sprawling dystopia of the city.

I wonder to myself if I can still bleed and I pick at my scars a bit. A little blood trickles and I smile. I feel alive again and I am already smiling again at the soothing flow. It drips onto my dirty straight jacket. As I watch that blood drop, I smile. I am glad I set that fire and I am glad I stayed in the blaze to die. This world is not for me. It never was and never will be. How could a beautiful illusion like this world hold a place for a disgusting, vile image of reality such as me? People like me exist to make those still laboring under the delusion of love and justice look more heroic. It is almost funny to me that this is the case.

Continuing on into the city, I walk into the middle of the street, throw my head by and let out a mournful howl. Within seconds all the neighborhood dogs have joined in and their masters shout at them to be silent. I stop a moment, and then begin screaming. As I scream, babies wail, toddlers sob and animals go insane. All the adults shout at the children and animals to be silent, but as I scream, they pay no heed to the scoldings. I have no need to draw breath anymore, so I scream for over an hour before I close my mouth and rest a moment. I smile a little at the havoc I've stirred, animals have been put outside their houses, children have been punished and the adults head off to get drunk for the ordeal. Time seemed to stand still for that hour, lights flickered, traffic stopped and humanity was under my control. How exhilarating to be in command. I can stop the world on a whim. I can turn order to chaos just by opening my mouth and now that I know it, I feel a wave of ecstasy overcome me and I fall to my knees, laughing wildly. My laughter seems to cause a chill as the people in my direct vicinity shiver. I don't know if they can hear my laughter, but I doubt they can. My madness must be bone-chilling if my laughter causes a reaction like that. My insanity has its advantages, it seems. It grants me the control I have desired which has always eluded me. My god, it's thrilling. It's something I never felt in life. Even when I was in the asylum or that glass house and threw myself against the walls, clawing at them no one was uneasy, just terrified and uneasiness is subtle, things of subtlety are far more beautiful than great crushing forces which destroy all that is in their path, this I have known always and to have the gift to cause that is magnificent.

I suddenly feel empty, though; however I shake my head and laugh it off. Once again, like a crash of lightning across a calm sky, I'm already smiling. I regret nothing, I will apologize for nothing. I am me, Ryan Kuhn, and I live only the life which is mine, and I am bound to nothing. A Buddhist proverb from the Zen sect. As I think this way, I wonder why misery must follow the intelligent everywhere. I feel that if ignorance is bliss, everyone but me should be ecstatic about life. Ah well.

I walk out of the city and through a slummy area down a lonely road. A cross by the side of the road reads 'Royce Clayton; beloved son, brother and high school hero' I laugh and stare at it a moment. I wish I could still piss, if I could I'd relieve myself on that grave to show my disdain. A hero indeed. All he did was bully his peers and play baseball, not much of a hero if you ask me. He may have been called 'The Torn Prince', but Cesare Borgia, Machiavelli's inspiration for 'The Prince', was the only prince I acknowledge. Cruel, calculating and intelligent, a man I can respect.

Further down the road, an electric fence stands. Posted on it, a sign reads 'Beware of Dogs'. Atop the gate, another sign reads 'Mahoney & Son'. For a moment, I stop and look at the sign, contemplating going into the junkyard. My heart tells me 'yes', wrenching and pounding in my chest, but my mind says 'no, you can't trust anyone, not even him.' I go with my mind on this one, he's an idiot anyway, I'd never want to see him again, the pathetic fool.

I can't stay too long in front of the gate, my heart aches and my blood boils. I decide to walk on. I may return some day, as I can lay no claim to a home of my own. Kuhn Manor has been turned into some foolish museum of Serial Killers for the simple minded, provincial public. Borehamwood, as I mentioned before, burned down and was hardly a home to begin with. I cannot cross such a large body of water, it seems, and so I cannot return to my father's house in England.

As I continue my lonely trek down the open road, I cross a field, one hundred yards across with posts on either side. There is a memorial on the side of the field to Susan LeGrowe who they say was a charming and beautiful girl but I say was the biggest bitch I've ever met. I walk over and kick the memorial over, pouncing on it and tearing it to shreds with a whoop of glee. 'RAWWOOOO!' I howl cheerily as I tear it apart with my teeth and claws like a puppy with a tiny mouse. The Jackal part of me takes over and I roll on it too.

Eventually I get bored and get to my feet, the sun is setting now, it is almost night and I still have a ways to go. I don't know where I am going, but I know I have a long way to go. I arrive in the middle of a large field. A buck and a doe prance through the field together; the male is large and slouching under the weight of his own loins. I know it is their mating season when I notice this. They stop a moment together and I turn to leave. Even animals deserve an element of privacy to further the so-called miracle of life. These gentle beasts will mate and their faun will live in both of their care and in the care of the entire herd. It will never suffer like I did, alone and neglected for their entire childhood. Soon, their faun will grow up and come back to this place to continue this cycle. I will not be here then, for I will soon will myself from this plane of existence. I do not care where I go, only that I am gone, no longer to suffer alone in this world. I bid the two creatures adieu and return to my pilgrimage.

I am unsure how, but I end up back in the city. I enter a small alleyway to rest and a dog approaches, growling at me. I step back a moment, but then move towards it. It is a large dog, black and brown with large fangs and claws. Its paws are white and its face is a dark mask. Its pointed ears are flat against its head and its tail and fur are raised in anger. I slowly approach and put my hand out; the dog sniffs it and decides I am no threat. It licks my hand and gets into a pouncing position, yipping playfully. I get into the same position and give a playful growl, I ponder for a moment why I stopped to play with this dog and I decide 'Why not?' We wrestle for a while, then I find a thin metal pipe in the trash. I throw it for the dog, who fetches it and brings it back. We repeat the process for a few minutes and then I pet its head and leave.

The streets are empty this night as it begins to rain. Mist rises and settles in the air. The moon is full but is also covered in clouds and as I stare up at it, I lose my balance and fall. I lie on my back, staring up at the sky; I close my eyes and cry out to the sky: 'AAAAAAAAAAARUUUUUUUUUU!' I howl mournfully as though my heart is breaking. I am in pain, I am truly in pain and I don't even know why….Just so lonely….So horribly alone….'ARUUUUUUU! GWAAAAAA! GWAAAAA! GWAAAARUUUUUUUUUU! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARUUUUUUUUUUU!' I cry. I can't stop; tears begin to flow down my cheeks with the rain 'AWWWWUUUUUUUU! WAAAAAA! WAA! WAAAAARUUUUUUUU!' I want to be held, comforted. To have someone stroke my hair and say 'Ryan, hush now, it's okay.' But no one will. No one ever has. In my life, no one has ever comforted me when I was in pain. Not my mother, not my father, not Horace….No one….No one at all…I raised myself till I was ten and I fended for myself alone since I was twenty one to this moment now. Horrible. I don't ask for pity or help. I help myself. I look out for me and no one else. Damn everyone else…Fuck 'em all. FUCK THE WORLD. ARRRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU! I am only me and I care only for me! ARUUUU! ARUUU! ARUUUUUUUUUUUUU! I live and die for me and in death I am only here for me. Until I leave this awful world. Oblivion…Anything is better than this cursed existence.

I eventually stand up and walk aimless off in the direction I guess is north. I'm back on that lonely forsaken road between the city and wherever I was before. I come back to the junkyard and stand before the gate for about an hour, when I notice someone standing behind the gate staring at me. Piercing red eyes stare into my own blue ones. A large grey-blue hand grasps the holes in the gates, the other presses against the gate and against my better judgment; I place my own gray hand against it.

"You came back…."

"Don't read too much into it, I just felt like I had to stop here…Not to see you, moron." I tell him with a sneer.

"I don't believe you. You're just pretending you don't care, but I know and I'm enough of a man not to hide what I know or what I feel…Even if it makes me seem dumb and less like a man..." He says to me. I scoff.

"You're an idiot then. Forget why I'm here, I've said hello and now I'm leaving." I fold my arms petulantly. I feel like a little kid. Why should I feel this way when I'm so very smart?

"You never said hello." He states plainly.

"Good bye, Horace." I turn away, although part of me doesn't want to.

"Good bye, Ryan." He replies. I freeze for a minute, I am surprised. I expected him to ask me to stay. He seemed so attached to me back in that house. Occasionally, Cyrus let us out of our cubes. I guess he wanted to make sure we knew the house or something to that effect. He never spoke to us, after all. He thought we could not speak, I suppose. Oh well, it doesn't matter anymore…

I'm sure Horace thinks I will turn around and come back just because I stopped for a minute, but I just keep walking, much more slowly, but with purpose. I pass Royce's memorial cross and grin when I see a wolf lift its leg over it. I laugh a little and continue along the road. I stop and stare up at the moon. It is lovely.

"Ryan! Wait!" Oh great, it's him again.

"What do you---" Before I can finish, he grabs me by the shoulders and leans down, pressing his lips to mine. I growl a bit, but my eyes close gently and I return the kiss, my trembling hands press to his chest. Nothing else matters for that moment.

"I couldn't just let you walk off like that…I really care about you, even if you are a snob and a jerk." He smiles at me. I try to glare, but I can't. I just sit there with a dumb look on my face, it makes him laugh and I give him a sour frown.

"Shut up, asshole." I shout, blushing. I feel as dumb as he is when I say things like that, but I can't think of what else to say.

"Well, I'm gonna go home, you can come with me if you want…" He smiles hopefully.

"I think not." I sneer coldly and turn, walking away. I don't look back to see how he reacts. I tell myself I don't care, however a moment later I turn and he is gone. I feel a lump in my throat, but I shake off the feeling. And just stare up at the moon, hanging there in the sky. Eventually, I just shrug and walk on. I reach a corn field and stand at its center, staring up at the moon….and I am already smiling….

After I left the junkyard, I decided to try and get a house of my own since Kuhn Manor was gone. I heard laughter from a large manor like the kind I'd owned when I was alive. I am drawn to it and stalk ever closer. Despite my undead form, I still fear the cool dew covered grass beneath my bare feet. I see there are people in finery all around, they are surrounded by servants and bodyguards, policemen stand by at the door.

I make up my mind right then and there. I want this home. It will be mine. I stride gallantly to the door, the police don't notice me, but I decide they have to die anyway; I do love a flashy entrance. So I leap onto one of the officers and tear his throat out with my bare hands. Suddenly, his partner begins to fire. SHIT! They must be able to see me! FUCK! Well, I can't turn back now; I continue my assault, attacking the other officer in a similar manner. Within minutes a canine unit is there, but the dogs backed away and whimpered. My heart twisted, I like dogs and I didn't want them to be frightened, only the living humans. I approached the dogs and knelt before one, grabbing the sides of its face and pressing my forehead to its. For once I felt warm. I felt happy and at peace. I was calm for a moment. The next thing I knew, the dog started licking my nose. I laughed as its huge slobbery tongue went up my nose. I petted its head and thought 'Shit. This dog might get hurt if it stays.' So I undid the collars of all the dogs and they ran off into the night, howling with glee.

Now that that was no longer an issue, I turned back to the cops with a wicked grin. I tore through one after another, laughing hollowly as I went after them. One stumbled toward me with a gun in hand; I grabbed his arm, twisted it behind his back and held it fast. He squealed in pain, shaking his head. "N…No…P…Please…Please!" He sobbed, but I didn't listen, I jerked his arm upwards, ripping it out of its socket. He fell to the ground bleeding and screaming. I then grabbed him by the head and crushed it into the wall. The morons inside have no idea that I am systematically destroying every last officer outside. Finally, I notice one cop who doesn't appear to be dead yet. I stride over to him and he holds his gun up with trembling hands. I spread my arms, baring my chest, where my heart used to beat. Infact, I do him one better and make a tear in my straight jacket and the flesh of my chest, revealing my rotted blackened heart, still pounding hideously in my icy chest. "Take your best shot, officer." I sneered, standing still. Unlike most, he takes the shots, emptying the gun into my heart, panting heavily. However, I just shake it off, I am dead and it does not matter that he's buried countless bullets in my heart. He gasps, staring up at me.

"W…What _**ARE**_ you!?" He asked, eyes widening.

"I'm Anubis, you dumb motherfucker." I sneered. "God of Judgment and your sorry ass is mine." I laugh insanely. I have no idea what is so funny about what I just said, but I practically roll on the ground laughing at he officer. He looked perplexed, but shakily raises his gun again, seemingly forgetting that he'd emptied that gun into my chest earlier. So pathetic. I walk over and pick him up by the neck and hold him up, within a moment, smash him into the wall, then the other. I finally understand why Horace did this to his victims! It is exhilarating! I swear I got a stiffy just doing that. Remarkably, the guy wasn't dead. By now, however, I was bored of it, the swelling in my pants was painful now, I needed some privacy and so I tossed him aside and stepped back. "It's been loads of fun, I mean hell, I guess violence is how I get my jollies. Thank you for sharing this with me, I've decided not to kill you." I smirk, turning and leaving with a grin. I would go back to the house tomorrow to take it over; it was time to call it a night. I eventually got some relief alone behind a tree.

I go back to that house again when I am through. That same officer is there and as promised, I do not kill him. He advances on me and it is hard to think of how to impede him without killing him. My question is answered as I notice a night stick left on the ground by another cop earlier. I pick it up and clonk him upside the head. With a grown, he sinks to the ground, cursing me before he falls unconscious. I just laugh and shake my head, continuing into the manor, walking towards the partygoers. They are oblivious and I am filled with rage again. They cannot see me, do not notice me! FUCK! I give a feral roar and leap upon the nearest person, a man in an expensive suit and well shined shoes. His bad comb over tells me that the lovely lady beside him is just waiting for him to die so she can claim his money. Bet she didn't expect this, I think as I claw the man's neck and finally, with some considerable effort, jerk his head from his shoulders. A sickening KERRRRAAAACK! As the bones break and then a POP! As they separate, blood gushes, spurting like a fountain. Now everyone's attention is focused on where I am. They begin to scream and in the panic, I kill the gold digger, several servants and at least twenty more people.

When my murderous rampage has ceased, I leap into the air, gracefully floating up to the first landing of the stairs. I stand regally upon the railing, arms folded across my chest as my long jet black hair whips about behind me in the night wind coming from the still open doors. "To all who are still alive, you will vacate this place if you wish to live. Take your dead and give them whatever burial you wish, loot their corpses for all I care, you bloody fucking vultures. But never return here, or as they are, so shall you be." I narrow my eyes in a cold sneer at the people standing below. Clearly, they get the message whether or not they can see or hear me, because they go running, screaming their bloody heads off. I toss back my head and let out a wicked laugh at their stupidity.

My conquering of that house completed, I leave for but a moment, to return to the junkyard where Horace lives. I have to tell him about the amazing experience of total slaughter. I used to kill just one at a time, but I find that a quick genocide can be just as exhilarating. Damn, that's good! Spending hardly a moment reflecting, I begin to walk to the junkyard. My steps are slow and deliberate. I am taking my sweet time as I stroll down the moonlit highway; animals stop their nightly routine and tremble in fear, hiding in the trees as I approach. The entire world around me goes silent; I am already smiling when I realize this.

Soon I arrive under the enormous sign; Mahoney & Son. I stand at the gate and wait for Horace to notice my presence. As a ghost, his senses are fine tuned to other ghosts, myself being one of them. It doesn't take long for him to arrive at the gate. "Ryan…" He smiles.

"Good evening, Horace…. I just wanted to tell you, I understand why you enjoy the more brutal killings, you know, tearing limb from limb, smashing people into things, that kind of thing. It's nearly orgasmic!" I grin, licking my lips.

"Is that a propa….propo….er…invitation, Ryan?" Horace grins, blushing sheepishly at his inability to figure out words.

"The word you're looking for is proposition. And no, it isn't, I was just telling you I understand you much better now. Maybe another time. I just don't know if I can focus on that sort of thing, I'm still a bit fucked up…" I admit.

"You're still trying to find yourself?" He asks, cocking his head to one side. "Why would you wanna do that? It sounds so boring…Meditating? Lying still for hours?" He continues.

"Because, Horace, I still don't know how I feel about myself and this new stage of my afterlife. I can't just blindly accept that I'm supposed to just find a home, guard it and just be satisfied with this eternity. How do I know it won't vanish into oblivion?" I ask, rhetorically, Horace isn't smart enough to give a satisfactory answer.

"Ryan….Have you seen anyone else from the house since you've left?" Horace asked sympathetically, reaching his large hand through a hole in the fence, grabbing my smaller weaker hand in his larger more powerful one.

"No….Susan and Royce aren't worth finding…Margaret and Harold are nearly just as useless. Dana's gone somewhere…I haven't seen her since that night we all left. Jean vanished that night and she wasn't much help to begin with…." I mentally go down the list of our fellow prisoners, mouthing the syllables which form their names and ticking off each one on my fingers till I can remember. There was Jimmy, a compulsive gambler. He could hardly help himself so I'd not leave my troubles to him. Who else? Billy Michaels, that petulant little kid. Isabella Smith, she was a wise old woman and may be able to help me, but who on earth knew where she could be? George Markley was an honest and intelligent man; he might take pity and help me. But he had since found his family's spirits and I don't think he was from around here…They must have gone home. Then it came to me, it didn't matter. "It doesn't matter anyway, all I need is you." I admit, for once looking purposefully into his eyes. He returns the gaze; a puzzled half smile crosses his face.

"You mean it. I can tell." His smile broadens. "Wanna come in now?" He steps back, opening the gate and bowing with a gesture of his hand. Damn, this guy must have heard a lot of fairytales as a kid.

"I thank thee kindly, Signori Montague." I laugh, rolling my eyes sarcastically and walking in.

"Is that Mexican?" He asked.

"No, Horace, Senor is a Spanish word, not Mexican, infact there is no such language as Mexican, and besides, Signori is Italian…I was making a joke…Romeo and Juliet, get it?" I ask, offering a small smile. I guess I've mistaken Horace for Gareth again. They're similar, but I guess Gareth was a little smarter. Do not think me shallow, but I do prefer Horace, he's not as ugly as Gareth was, that isn't the only reason though, Horace and I are closer because he cannot read, this means I have to read to him and that is more gratifying and intimate than sex, oddly enough. He looks at me with the wonder of a small child, even though he looks silly sitting with his long thick legs crossed awkwardly on the ground, his mouth slack with wonder particularly when I read classics he can relate to.

We decide against physical intimacy tonight, opting instead for the more emotional intimacy of a good book. As I open the first page and read the title 'Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes', I am already smiling. Halfway through the book, Horace is asleep. I smile and shake my head in mock annoyance, grabbing a blanket off the back of the beat up old armchair I was sitting in, draping it gently over him before leaving. I am careful to close all the doors and turn off all the lights, the last thing Horace needs is an investigation of his old home.

As I leave the junkyard, I realize I was mistaken about it being mating season for the deer. It has begun to snow. I trudge through the blanket of cold and ice, unable to find my way to my newly conquered home; I arrive at an old abandoned church. The old gate creaks open when I push it and I take a step into the churchyard, looking around. I stand there a moment, staring up at the moon and the snowflakes fallen from the heavens, each one beautiful and poetic in its own right. As different as life and death. I kneel in the snow, lying down in it. I feel the coldness creeping over my dead flesh. I tremble a bit and decide to see what it is like inside. The church is dark and decrepit. Cobwebs in every corner with black and red candles melting all over the altar. The pews are torn and broken, the red silk seats spilling their cotton stuffing while the wooden frames crack. The giant crucifix which once hung in the back, judging by the now bare imprint it left, has crushed some of the organ pipes. Still I decide to sit down and see if my piano lessons from my father are still ingrained in my memory. I sit at the organ and close my eyes, fingers gliding over the keys. I play a mournful tune my father would always play late at night when he thought I was asleep. In an instant, I am eleven years old again, sitting on the steps in my nightshirt watching my father play the old grand piano by candlelight, head tossing back so his long black hair, which was always tied back with a black ribbon, swayed behind him, his elegant and fragile hands (a trait I inherited) would glide like dancers across the keys, picking out the notes ever so daintily as the candle burnt on in its holder, he would play until it burned out entirely and sometimes he remembered the song so well that he would play even longer.

Remembering my father, I am saddened and begin to walk slowly out of the church. Halfway down the aisle, I break into a run until I am tripping over myself to get out. When I finally do, I gasp for breath (although there is no need, my lungs blackened and dried up long ago). Even so, it feels good to know the feeling in death. As I calm down, however, my heart begins to sink. Was my life not everything I had hoped for from the time I was ten till I turned twenty? All I ever wanted? It must have been! I was rich and cocky and ever so clever! I was never caught when I killed and I saw nothing wrong with it, I had everything a person could want, fine clothes, great works of art, servants at my beck and call. A proverbial treasure heap right there in my own five story manor! If I wanted for anything, all I had to do was to snap my fingers and it was mine! All I could ever have dreamed of…So why….why did I ever feel such guilt? Why wasn't I ever happy? Truly happy, I mean. Of course I felt vague happiness on the surface, but deep in my heart, I was in pain…Even now, I am in pain….

I feel utterly alone, even Horace sees my relationship with him as proof that life continues indefinitely after death. That is something I just cannot accept. For a man such as me, hell is the only thing I deserve and then it hits me- I have made my own personal hell out of this earth. I toss back my head with an insane laugh, falling to the ground and landing with a soft 'THUMP' in the snow. I can't stop laughing till I fall onto my back, eyes closed in glee. Once again, I am already smiling.


End file.
